Kanye West Quotes

Me, myself, I was a part of gang bangin', you know what I'm sayin'?

I lived the street life for a minute; I lost a lot of friends.

In my hood, I was always with the older guys.

You might go into 'Dope' feeling you already know what this movie is because, all right, there's kids, they're from Inglewood, oh, it's drugs.

I was never a rah-rah person. I never sold drugs or did anything crazy.

When I was young, running with a gang was a cool thing to do; that's how you get popular; that's how you get the girls.

People don't understand that where I come from, everyone is either a convict, been in jail, been in a gang, is a hooligan of some sorts, but those are my brothers, my family and the people that I travel with. Those are the people that I roll with.

Drugs, sex, booze, all the stuff that we wanted to do. The problem was that we didn't want to learn the top 40 'cause most of the music was awful and we had this other idea about what we wanted to do.

There were uncles in my life that definitely knew the street life.

Oakland, by far, is really gorgeous; it still has these pockets that are really dangerous. Certain things are kind of normal. I think kids out there can be tested in a way where his right of passage ties into a bit of violence and how that has become these markers in masculinity and you being kind of validated after having to pass through things.

I wanted to be a gangsta from birth, not because of the music but moreso what I was seeing, what my uncles were doing. I was just fascinated with the street lifestyle from a young age.

Nahmir is just an idiot. He just glorifies street life. He idolizes it.

I wasn't accepted because I didn't accept the drug culture that most of my peers were involved in. Now it's like a locked room.

I think girls are especially worried about being judged, and when you're in high school, everything seems like a bigger deal than it is. As soon as you're out, it feels like forever ago-zip-a-dee-doo-dah! So do what you want, and if people are going to judge you for it, who cares? You might not fit in, but that's okay.

In London, I did feel a pressure to be more avant-garde than I wanted.

Mike Tyson and I came up together in the streets, and being around people like him, I learned what goes on behind the scenes.

I'm actually one of the sharper tools in the box that haven't been in the streets like that, but I have family members, close loved ones, that that's all they know.

I understand that if someone's going to make me his idea of cool, I can't control that.

I was a bad kid, getting into a lot of wild stuff.

When you're younger, all you want to do is fit in, and then the older you get, you don't want to fit in, you want to stand out.

I really don't have an interest in it and people think I'm a freak because I'm not obsessed by 'Strictly Come Dancing' but it just doesn't appeal to me. I'm really sorry but I can't get into it. You get treated like a complete pariah if you don't like things like that!

The reason they want you to fit in... is that once you do, then they can ignore you.

As gang members, as young dudes in the streets, especially in L.A., we're the effect of a situation. We didn't wake up and create our own mindstate and our environment; we adapted our survival instincts.

What does it mean that social structures among young people are so often predicated upon trying really, really hard to appear to not-be-trying?

I think drugs are part of the magical possibilities of youth and I wouldn't be here if I had continued with it.